


get me out of this cavern (or i'll cave in)

by snowtagonist



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Character Study, Gen, One Shot, Sort Of, its just me spitting out what i think darnold was up to/thinking before the science team turned up, rated teen for canon typical hlvrai-isms, so i offer this, there is very little to tag this as, theres just a criminal deficit of darnold fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25856449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowtagonist/pseuds/snowtagonist
Summary: Darnold has work to be doing, there's no time to consider the horrifying ramifications of one of Black Mesa's experiments! Also if he thinks about any of this for too long he might have a meltdown.(aka: darnold was on his own for days and was barely aware of what happened and i have Thoughts about that fact)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	get me out of this cavern (or i'll cave in)

**Author's Note:**

> song title is from cave in by owl city!! i kind of picked it at random tbh

Your name is Darnold Pepper, and the world has gone to hell.

It’s near impossible to avoid noticing that things are very,  _ very  _ wrong. The earth practically shook apart under your feet a few days ago, tremors spreading throughout the compound from the centre out like the most destructive ripples on a pond anyone has ever seen. If it was bad enough that you, out on the surface in a lab where most people half forget you exist, could feel it so strongly you worried for more than a moment that you were going to die, you shudder to think of what it must be like down below.

But that’s not your department. So you pull yourself back to work and try not to think about it.

The ground beneath you still sometimes groans with the force of something you don’t understand, don’t want to understand- because if you think too long about whatever the hell could be going on, you think you might crumble to pieces. If there’s one thing you can’t afford, it’s a breakdown like that.

You keep working like nothing’s changed, as if you probably haven’t lost your job by virtue of the facility imploding or something. Chemicals and beakers blur together in a haze of mindless testing, bubbles in red solution, a near electric crackle at the edges of a petri dish left untouched for a day or two. Time is starting to get blurry, shut up in here.

But what are you going to do? Go outside? You think not.

Despite your willful ignorance to the details, you aren’t  _ stupid _ . You hear the gunfire that tears through Black Mesa on and off, the pounding of feet that can only be caused by people wearing pounds upon pounds of heavy equipment, their asinine chatter that makes your blood boil if you listen too long. You might not know what exactly the military- and you’re almost certain that’s what they are- is up to, but you don’t trust them for a second, not as far as you could throw them. And you’ve never been terribly strong- so that distance amounts to just about nothing.

Your metaphors might be getting a little jumbled, come to think of it.

The sound of guns raining down hell just outside the door of your largely forgotten lab- and you have never been so happy to be overlooked- isn’t all you’ve noticed to clue you in on the hellish state the world outside is in. Sometimes, when you’re least expecting it, a shriek or some other horrible sound will cut through the air. Always inhuman, always just a little different- always  _ off  _ in a way that drives a sharp knife made of paranoia and anxiety deeper and deeper into your chest. It’s cold in your lungs and threatens to overwhelm you with a fearful, panicked sheen of frost, but you pull yourself back.

Work, Darnold. Focus. Make another flavour. Don’t think about any of this.

Don’t listen to the distant screams of the coworkers you can’t save.

You swirl a flask of syrup, the intense shade of bubblegum pink looking more promising by the second, swallowing down the ever-so-slight tremor in your hands with an easy laugh. You’d like to think it’s an easy laugh, at least. In truth, it probably comes out strained.

The thought of coworkers sends you spiralling in a direction you’d been trying  _ very  _ goddamn hard not to acknowledge. You can’t consider people right now- people are too real, too conclusive. If you think about people, it means thinking that they might have died. It means knowing there’s a very low likelihood you’re ever going to see some familiar faces again. It means worry, panic, dread. It means one step closer to losing your mind in a situation that seems determined to send you flying off the handle.

It means wondering if Tommy’s still alive.

You shake your head, ignoring the way your fingers are curled around the stem of the flask, trembling even more than before. It’s fine.  _ You’re  _ fine.

As long as you keep yourself busy, you’ll be fine.

You’ve got sixteen flavours now, practically all made in a daze and simmering away on your workstation, and you haven’t seen the sun in what feels like a week. Most likely, it hasn’t been that long- but whoever designed this place forgot to give you windows, and your sleep patterns have been permanently destroyed by everything that’s happened. Hard to sleep properly when you’re woken up every few hours by either gunfire, another tremor from deep below, or your own racing, panicked thoughts. The fact that no one’s come after you yet is a  _ miracle _ .

The fact that no one’s come to save you either stings more than you’d like to admit.

Droppers and beakers and rubber gloves start to slide off your memory like water off a duck. At least when your hands burn from chemicals and uncomfortable goggles leave indents in your face, you still have your computer. Apparently, whatever the hell happened down there didn’t knock out the internet. Thank god for that- it gets boring in a huge mixology lab by yourself.

It also gets lonesome. But it’s not like you have a quick fix for that one.

Your head hurts like it’s never fucking hurt before, but there are twenty flavours sitting on the flat surface of your increasingly messy work table. You have your suspicions that the mass amounts of chemical fumes that can’t actually circulate in a near airtight room could have something to do with that.

The earth has pretty much stopped shaking. Or at least you think it has. You’ve been pretty delirious lately- soda isn’t the best substitute for water, it seems, no matter how much you used to drink. You’re far from immune to sugar crashes. For the time being, though, that’s one less thing to force yourself to tune out.

Not for the first time, you wish your department had any sort of view to the outside. The strobe of fluorescent lights is really starting to bother you. You can see why some of your friends can’t stand to be in here- the incessant buzz that usually doubles as easy white noise is grating after hours upon hours spent locked in the lab in silence. It kind of makes you want to scream.

Focus, right. Buckle down again. Don’t give yourself an inch to break down, you won’t be able to pull yourself back together.

You sigh, slumping back into your startlingly comfortable computer chair, the rolling wheels shifting slightly under your weight as you drag a hand down your face. This is almost too much for you- you don’t even want to  _ entertain  _ the idea of what someone caught in the middle of all this is going through. You slide your gloves off with barely steady hands, laying them gently onto the wooden top of the desk your PC rests on. You barely remember when you even put those on.

In a similar vein, you wake up hours later with no recollection of when you even went to sleep. The only thing that even tells you you passed out is the impression of the stitching on your chair stamped into your left forearm, and the way your lower back twinges when you hop to your feet. Hell, even with that sense of confusion, that’s the best you’ve slept in days. Ten out of ten,  _ way  _ better than sleeping on the near-freezing floor. Linoleum hurts. You’re not sure why you didn’t do this sooner- but fear does funny things to people, and you let the subject slip from your mind.

Back to work, you suppose. Never a day off for Dr. Pepper.

You keep your nose down, bouncing rapid fire between your workstation, littered with… increasingly strange containers, and the pages and pages of notes open on your computer. You almost second guess yourself when you knock into what used to be a wine bottle, sending a small spattering of pale blue liquid across the floor- but hey, a guy has to get creative in the middle of what’s probably the apocalypse, right? You make do with what you’ve got. You always have. 

Leaning back from your work, you wipe a hand over your brow with a softly enthused expression. Good progress- very good progress. More than you’ve made in a while. You whirl on your heel, bending slightly at the waist to flick a hand over the wheel of your mouse as you scan through your notes, mumbling to yourself.

Twenty-three flavours.

Behind you, the door hisses open.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on a whim over like 2 hours its not the greatest but i love darnold so im posting it anyway! you go you funky little potions master but also have you considered finding a coping mechanism that isn't avoidance and/or working yourself to death 
> 
> im chaotic-solutions on tumblr! hope this was a decent read ive never written darnold pov before


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